Confidence - the key to competing

The 2012 Olympics just completed. Numerous men and women from around the world competed against each other to win the gold medal, each having spent years training themselves for these events. In each event, only one person wins. To have a chance to win you must enter the arena, the competition. The competition is intense and powerful for unless you choose to compete against the powers of this world, you have not really yet entered the arena because the prize is awarded only to those who defeat the powers of this world. To win the gold we need, as did Jesus Christ, to keep our focus on the heart of God, to discipline and master the thoughts of our mind and the actions of our heart so not as to allow the powers of this world to distract and defeat us. You can tell others about the prize and you can help them train, but ultimately you have control only over yourself. Make every effort to prepare  yourself to compete and to keep yourself on the right course to finish the race. The winner is not the one who does it out of shear discipline and personal strength. The winner is the one whose confidence in God is so strong that he/she is able to release themselves fully into the hands of God, to trust Him, with absolute confidence to lead you across the finish line. 1 Corinthians 9

Dance Again

When things get really tough remember this, the challenges you are facing that cause you to feel beaten and abandoned by God are only for a moment. Our brokenness and tears only last for the night then comes morning and shouts of joy.  Although at the moment it may feel like God has abandoned you, he has not abandoned you, his favor is upon you for a lifetime. King David faced death by his enemies yet his heart was so attuned with God that he could say, “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me; O Lord, be Thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou has loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness; that my soul may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to Thee forever.” Psalm 30

Avoid the tall trees

God has a plan for us. That is good news! And God’s plan for us is for our benefit, it is a plan of hope and a future. Often however, as we go about life we become complacent or get easily seduced into going down a path that takes us on a journey into some territory that leads us away from living the plan God has for us. Then we come to a place in life that we begin to recognize that God has so much more he wants to give us in life, so much more he has promised, and we are missing out. Picture yourself hiking in the wilderness. The views from the mountain tops are grand as you look across multiple peaks, you come upon a stream, then a waterfall, fields of wildflowers. You have been walking enjoying the journey but not recognizing that you have now journeyed off and are surrounded by a field of tall pine trees. There is no visible trail. Your heart begins to beat faster now, your anxiety leads your body to drip with sweat, your stomach starts to turn. With every little sound your imagination begins to tell of the danger all around you. You are lost and you know it. More so than any other time do you recognize you need help. Sometimes God needs to take us on a journey that leads us to a point where we will earnestly see that we need him, and we have strayed from the plan he has for us. The good news is, when we come to that point again he leads us back to the point where we began.  Jeremiah 29:11-14

Unwavering Conviction

Is the confidence of your purpose sure that in the midst of opposition you have the courage and conviction to stay with it until your opposition is totally destroyed and you have completed everything you set out to do. For 5-7 years Joshua was on the battlefield. His assignment to utterly destroy all who breathed in the land God promised to Israel. Joshua 11:15 says, “and so Joshua did, he left nothing undone of all the Lord had commanded Moses.” To stay with something as Christ, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the disciples, and other martyrs did you need to have the confidence in your calling from God, and unwavering conviction that comes from trusting God completely. Joshua was victorious because he stuck to it. He stuck to it, day after day, always alert to his enemies who were waiting for him to lose focus for a moment, to tire, to doubt, or to give up. Joshua had to stay alert, focused, in constant pursuit of the objectives God set him on, otherwise he would loose the battle.